Qiu Yuan decided that Zuixian restaurant would be the venue for the dinner party for the entire crew after the filming was completed.
Zuixian restaurant was well-known in both the Core Zone and District One. It had been operated by the Zhou family, who possessed pure ancient Xia bloodlines, for generations. Even after modern renovations, the architecture still preserved a rich sense of history in its finer details. It looked elegant and traditional.
The interior decor followed a black and red color scheme, with solid wood tables and chairs. Ceramic lampshades cast a soft glow from warm-colored wall lights. Outside the private rooms was a scenic terrace, which led to a covered corridor connected by a wind-and-rain walkway.
The atmosphere at the party was great, and everyone was in high spirits.
Xin Hexue drank a few glasses of the house-made aged pear blossom white wine.
Sensing his body becoming uncomfortable, he put the glass down and stopped drinking.
It seemed to have started raining outside.
The two wide-open windows swung outwards, and white lines of rain dripped rhythmically from the eaves.
When it rained, the wind-and-rain corridor of the restaurant looked very beautiful.
Xin Hexue said to Qiu Yuan, “I’m going out to get some air.”
In the back courtyard of the restaurant grew a five-hundred-year-old ginkgo tree. Its crown had already reached the same height as the restaurant.
In his second life, when he and his mother were still in the cold palace, there was also a ginkgo tree growing at one corner of the palace wall. The majestic vermilion palace walls towered above, and because the palace servants were lazy with sweeping, layers upon layers of golden ginkgo leaves covered the ground, so thick that when one stepped on them, they felt soft underfoot.
Xin Hexue had only vague memories of his childhood in the second life, with only a few images flashing by occasionally.
He reached out and happened to catch a ginkgo leaf knocked loose by the rain, still cold and wet.
Autumn was coming.
This meant that if the two years of training were excluded, he had already stayed in this small world for nearly a year since the official start of the plot.
Xin Hexue: [What are the target characters’ values now?]
[Xi Zhengqing: Love Value 100, Heartbreak Value 93]
[Pei Guangji: Love Value 99, Heartbreak Value 89]
[Qiu Yuan: Love Value 712, Heartbreak Value 160]
Xin Hexue hadn’t paid much attention to Qiu Yuan’s values before. The system’s calculation for Qiu Yuan’s value growth seemed different from the general aggregation rules.
The rising value in the notifications was still normal, but when calculating the total, it would be calculated as eight times.
Lately, he had been asking K about each target’s values every few days to determine when he could leave this world.
He had no intention of spending decades in this small world. Anyway, the audience in the big world loved watching BE endings. Death was currently the best-performing and most efficient method of exit.
The seventy-three points he had accumulated during the earlier stages were flushed down the drain after being used to redeem an antidote. In order to exit the world painlessly, he had been painstakingly saving up points again.
Fortunately, Qiu Yuan was an eight-times-value monster.
Farming points was easy.
However, when converting the eight-times heartbreak value into the standard heartbreak value, he had actually gained only twenty points. He had noticed that these were mainly gained when he showed visible signs of poor health.
The rise was slow, and recently, because Qiu Yuan kept making him various nourishing soups, his health seemed to have slightly improved.
Fortunately, he had already grasped more information about Qiu Yuan.
And it was the other party who had taken the initiative to reveal it.
Just the night before yesterday, Qiu Yuan told him about his future plans;
To destroy the current evolution system, break the hierarchical order of the Federation’s thirteen districts, and grant legal rights and obligations to the mutant species.
Xin Hexue wasn’t surprised by this. After all, Qiu Yuan had always maintained close ties with the mutant species. Sometimes, he had even run into Qiu Yuan holding remote video meetings with the Huozhong organization.
Qiu Yuan had actually never tried to hide it from him, probably because he believed in the illusion Xin Hexue had created, that he was also a mutant species, so he had pulled him into his sphere of protection.
To this end, Qiu Yuan had already taken control of the Qiu family’s military factories. The high-tech weapons he supplied to the military, supposedly designed to target mutant species, were actually incapable of causing real fatal damage.
“Evolution should return to the hands of nature, not be controlled by humans.” That was what Qiu Yuan said. At the time, he looked at Xin Hexue seriously. “Can you understand me?”
The conglomerates had monopolized the path to evolution. In an environment that was growing increasingly worse and under harsh conditions where genetic diseases were rampant, ordinary people had to pay a heavy price just to obtain defective, mass-produced medicinal agents and mechanical parts that fell through the gaps between the elites’ fingers. Just like in films and TV shows, the poor in the lower districts had to overdraft their lives just to keep on living.
Qiu Yuan explained the truth about the Xi family’s mechanical evolution to him.
A hundred years ago, the Xi family discovered a rare mineral. Through research, they found it could be used in the process of mechanical bionic manufacturing. It was the key to ensuring that bionic organs did not cause rejection when integrated with the human body. This allowed the Xi family to break through technical barriers and shift from an industry focused mainly on robot manufacturing to opening up a divine path to mechanical evolution.
Aside from each heir and a few core confidants of the Xi family, no one knew the location of the rare mineral.
It was said that the workers at the mining site were blindfolded when brought in, to prevent them from remembering the route. Afterward, they could never leave again and lived there for generations. The Xi family provided them with perfect benefits and all necessary living and working facilities, but they were completely cut off from the world.
What Qiu Yuan wanted to do was blow up the mine.
K said to Xin Hexue: [That kind of mineral is the origin crystal of the world.]
From that perspective, Qiu Yuan’s plans might not be as righteous as they sounded. He wanted to destroy the current evolution system, but if he couldn’t locate the mine, or if conventional methods failed to achieve his goal, then provoking a full-scale counterattack from the mutant species and turning the thirteen districts into utter chaos might also be an outcome he desired.
After all, one couldn’t overestimate the moral compass of an octopus.
The falling rain streaks soaked the sleeves of Xin Hexue’s clothes.
A waiter approached carrying a bouquet of flowers and said, “Sir, a guest claimed to be your fan and asked me to deliver these flowers to you.”
It was a bunch of cherry blossoms.
Its other name was Cosmos flower.
This imagery ran through the entire film, as the Carter brothers compared the protagonist Yi Si to cherry blossoms, which after their exuberant vitality was spent, are crushed into dust and returned to the earth.
‘Fan?’
Xin Hexue had already guessed the other party’s identity.
He smiled at the waiter and said, “Thank you. Could you help me take care of it?”
The waiter looked a little surprised but still immediately agreed to Xin Hexue’s request. “Of course, sir.”
The rain gradually let up.
Xin Hexue felt the haziness of the alcohol had faded, so he retraced his steps back to the private room.
But just as he passed through a moon-shaped gate in the garden-style courtyard, K suddenly warned: [Danger!]
But it was already too late. A strange fragrance surged toward him, and a cloth was pressed over his mouth and nose. Xin Hexue struggled subconsciously, but the person holding him from behind was far stronger and bigger than he was. As he struggled, the drug’s effect in the strange scent began to take hold, and Xin Hexue’s strength quickly drained away like a balloon after being punctured.
He felt like a limp noodle, completely at the mercy of the assailants.
Xin Hexue’s consciousness was a little hazy, but his five senses weren’t completely lost yet, and he was still able to open his eyes slightly.
After a series of twists and turns, they left the restaurant, avoided the street surveillance, and turned into a small alley.
At the end of the pitch-black alley a car was already parked.
As they approached, the window rolled down.
The person holding him asked in a low voice, “Gong family?”
The driver nodded.
Xin Hexue could sense that the person restraining him and his accomplices behind him all breathed a sigh of relief at the same time.
They prepared to load him into the car. Someone stepped forward and opened the backseat door, but the next second, a punch flew out from inside the car and hit him head-on.
The man who was punched in the eye cried out in pain.
A street brawl erupted out of nowhere.
The people who emerged from the car were clearly not the same kind of amateur thugs as those outside. They had real skills.
The sound of fists hitting flesh made one’s teeth ache.
The man holding Xin Hexue was ambushed from behind and struck across the back of the neck, causing him to fall unconscious immediately.
Someone quickly and carefully supported Xin Hexue, their attitude courteous, but without giving him a chance to object, they loaded him into the car.
The driver was speaking into a communicator, “Yes, yes.”
“Please rest assured, we will immediately send Mr. Xin to the autonomous aircraft.”
Xin Hexue was wondering whose people this group could be.
The group of people knocked out in the alley were clearly people from the Gong family, a subordinate family of the Xi family. Before the engagement banquet, they had already contacted the Black Snake organization to deal with him.
As for the ones driving?
Were they sent by Xi Zhengqing?
Xin Hexue wasn’t sure whether Xi Zhengqing had already discovered the Gong family’s rebellious intentions, and thus dispatched people here to intercept them.
But he no longer had the energy to think it through.
That strange fragrance clearly had a sedative effect. Xin Hexue’s body slumped to the side, and he lay down on the seat, losing most of his consciousness.
He could only vaguely tell that he had been transferred from the car to the so-called “autonomous aircraft” that the man mentioned.
The ride was smooth, and the conditions inside the aircraft were comfortable, and he fell into a deep sleep.
………
“Ah Xue.”
“Ah Xue.”
“Ah Xue?”
The Alpha called out like he was summoning a soul.
It woke Xin Hexue up.
What met his eyes was an unfamiliar environment, with wooden furniture, wooden floors, and it was neat and clean.
It was Xi Zhengqing.
It wasn’t hard to guess at all.
Xin Hexue sat up from the bed and quickly realized that his ankle was bound.
No matter how finely crafted it was, or how soft the inner lining was, it couldn’t hide the fact that it was a shackle.
One end was fastened to Xin Hexue’s right ankle, the other locked to a bedpost.
Xi Zhengqing hadn’t confiscated his communicator.
He ignored his concerned and eager small talk and instead slid open the communicator screen.
As expected, there was no signal.
But before he left the signal area, his communicator had received a message from Qiu Yuan.
[Qiu Yuan: Where are you?]
Xi Zhengqing originally didn’t plan to take Xin Hexue’s communicator, but after watching him stare at the screen for a long time, his eyes glimpsed at the contact name and a crack appeared in his gentle mask.
He said to Xin Hexue, “Can I help you keep this safe? There’s no signal here anyway, so the communicator won’t work. Let me hold onto it for you for now…”
Xin Hexue didn’t object, and Xi Zhengqing smoothly took the communicator into his hands.
The next moment, he was slapped across the face by Xin Hexue.
Xin Hexue didn’t hold back at all with that slap.
Xi Zhengqing was hit so hard that his head snapped to the side, and the left side of his face felt hot and numb.
A metallic taste had already spread through the inside of his mouth, but without hesitation, he rolled the blood pooling there into his throat and swallowed it, and was also able to smile as he said softly to Xin Hexue, “Thank you.”
?
Xin Hexue was so shocked by his shameless attitude that he was speechless.
It was like punching a ball of cotton.
Seeing the displeasure on Xin Hexue’s face, Xi Zhengqing shuffled over on his knees, gently took the hand that had slapped him, and blew on it, “Did it hurt when you hit me?”
Xin Hexue frowned and asked doubtfully, “Are you crazy?”
Xi Zhengqing’s expression froze for a moment, then he looked up at Xin Hexue and said, “I’m not. I just… I can’t be apart from you. I can’t bear it. You can’t be so cruel.”
Xin Hexue didn’t have the patience to listen to his nonsense. He threw off the blanket and sat on the edge of the bed.
His right foot that was bound by the shackle kicked Xi Zhengqing on the shoulder. Xin Hexue looked down at him and ordered condescendingly, “Key. Unlock it.”
Even though the inside of the shackle had been lined with soft fabric as a cushion, the young man’s ankle still bore marks from the restraint.
The skin around his ankle was a blinding white, and the flush of pink was too eye-catching…like it had been played with indecently, or bitten lightly with malicious intent, leaving behind an ambiguous mark.
A warm, large hand wrapped around the foot, the fingers slowly rubbing over the ankle bone as Xi Zhengqing said softly, “Isn’t this better? You don’t have to go anywhere. It’s too dangerous outside. I’ll prepare everything for you.”
Xin Hexue’s skin was sensitive, and the touch made him uncomfortable. He repeated coldly, “The key.”
Xi Zhengqing feigned innocence, “The key accidentally fell into the mountains outside the window.”
Xin Hexue followed his words and looked out the glass window.
Endless and boundless mountains stretched out in view, dense, green, and vast, like a prison crafted by nature itself.
Once swallowed, there was no escape.
‘Where was this place?’
Xin Hexue seemed to have a guess.
He pulled his foot out of Xi Zhengqing’s hand and placed his right foot back on the floor.
Xin Hexue changed his previous attitude. He leaned forward and gently stroked the red mark on Xi Zhengqing’s left cheek. “Does it hurt?”
Xi Zhengqing shook his head.
A gentle look appeared on Xin Hexue’s face, and his tone was like a bewitching lure. “Unlock it. I’ll tell you a secret.”
Xi Zhengqing leaned in, and their foreheads pressed together intimately, as if they had returned to the best time in their relationship. He followed Xin Hexue’s words and asked, “What secret?”
Xin Hexue let him kiss his forehead and whispered, “A secret about me, about you, about you and me…”
Xi Zhengqing didn’t really want to keep him locked up either. That pink mark was too much of an eyesore. Just knowing it was left by the shackle and not by himself made jealousy rise in him.
Seeing his attitude loosen, Xin Hexue inserted his fingers into Xi Zhengqing’s black hair, making Xi Zhengqing’s scalp tingle with pleasure.
He continued, “A well-behaved dog will get a reward.”
Xi Zhengqing followed Xin Hexue’s lead. He pulled out the key from his pocket, inserted it into the lock, and with a “click”, the shackle opened. He asked expectantly, “What’s the reward?”
“Aren’t you curious what the secret is?” Xin Hexue smiled lightly. “Actually…”
“I never confused you with Pei Guangji from the beginning.”
This was indeed an unexpected revelation and Xi Zhengqing’s expression went blank for a moment.
He responded a beat too slow, asking, “What?”
Xin Hexue’s tone was calm and unhurried. “You acted really badly, you know?”
“The excuse you used makes me question the genetic quality of the Xi family. Damaged vocal cords? You think you’re fooling a child?”
Xin Hexue laughed at him mockingly.
Xi Zhengqing was so shocked he couldn’t speak.
Xin Hexue shook his head. “Besides, Pei Guangji is a dull, old-fashioned man with no sense of fun. How could you think that collar was prepared for you?”
“The cake I left in the fridge for a week was for him…if he could come back.”
Xin Hexue looked at the stunned Alpha. “Surprised?”
“You’re really stupid. Full of flaws.” Every word Xin Hexue said was laced with sarcasm, and his tone was cold. “You must’ve worked hard to get engaged to me, right? So filial you drove your father into the hospital, and because you stole your brother’s fiancée, you had to fight Pei Guangji at the engagement banquet. All your noble pride was thrown away. Your father must regret raising a son like you. He probably died with hatred in his heart.”
After speaking, his lashes lowered, and his face seemed to carry the compassion of a Buddha, but his right foot ground down on Xi Zhengqing’s crotch without hesitation.
Xin Hexue took off Xi Zhengqing’s gold-rimmed glasses. Even through the fabric of his suit pants, the filthy thing beneath was so hard it hurt to step on. He pressed down harder, twisted his ankle, and ground again and again, until Xi Zhengqing let out a muffled groan from reflex.
Xin Hexue’s expression remained blank. “The heir of the Xi family was played around by me like a dog.”
He seemed to have grown bored, so he stood up and prepared to leave this place.
At the same moment, Xi Zhengqing grabbed him tightly from behind, as if trying to merge them into one. “That really did surprise me. Ah Xue… But since you know me this well, how could you not know that I deliberately poisoned the old man to death?”
The Alpha’s mental state and tone had already completely deviated from normal.
“You see, I wanted to deceive you, and I ended up getting deceived. You’re the real liar…”
“But I’m not a good person either, which means we’re a match made in heaven.”
Xi Zhengqing even had the mood to laugh.
‘I was careless.’ Xin Hexue admitted this move had a risky element. After the self-destruct truck, he originally thought he’d receive a notification saying the heartbreak value had increased. After all, Xi Zhengqing’s heartbreak value was just one step away from being full.
But instead, this damn thing got even more excited.
Xi Zhengqing kissed Xin Hexue’s earlobe, licking it as he asked in a sticky voice, “I’ve been very obedient. What’s the reward?”
He tried to carry Xin Hexue to the bed.
Xin Hexue didn’t hesitate: [K.]
The Alpha behind him collapsed to the ground with a loud thud.
Xin Hexue was certain he couldn’t escape for now, but he needed to scout the surrounding environment to verify his guess.
This was very likely a Xi family mining site.
He quickly opened the bedroom door, but in the next second stepped back.
A tall Alpha stood outside with his head lowered, silent like a statue. It was unclear how long he’d been listening.
Pei Guangji lifted his gaze and met Xin Hexue’s eyes, asking word by word in return, “A dull, old-fashioned man with no sense of fun?”
There was a sound from the bedside. Xin Hexue glanced back and frowned.
Xi Zhengqing had actually started to crawl up from the floor in a messy, staggering way, though his body was still unsteady.
‘Had he undergone some kind of body modification? Was he already immune to K’s electric shock?’
K’s notification sounds suddenly popped up like spam software messages.
K: [Pei Guangji Love Value +1, current Love Value is full]
K: [Pei Guangji Heartbreak Value +6, current Heartbreak Value 94]
K: [Xi Zhengqing Love Value is full, current Heartbreak Value 93]
K: [After assessment, the host’s personal danger level is currently 100%.]
K: […Battery depleted.]
Xin Hexue looked at Pei Guangji, then turned back to Xi Zhengqing. His expression grew grave.
Useless husband K was extremely worried.
The little cat might be sucked until only a mango pit was left.
The fluffy cotton-candy fur would become all wet and sticky.
